Speculative Physics (part 1)

Our conception of time is generally based on our understanding of motion: that is, time appears to us ordered by events of change in the relationship of one thing to another in space. That occurrence of change in space which seems to us the most fundamental and predictable we understand to be our truest indicator of time; therefore, the constant motions of the heavenly bodies mark for us our seasons, and form the basis for our organization of time. But time can also be ordered by any other regular and predictable series of events, such as the motion of a clock, which gives us a constant source of events to relate to events in our lives and thus generalize time lapsed between these events. We understand motion to be a change in the relationship of one object to another in space. We consider space to be without substance, and relationships in space to be determined only by matter: thus Albert Einstein’s conclusion that space between matter is not cognizable, and that the only means we have to signify the distance between bodies is to cognize an extension of matter between the two bodies, and measure that imagined body as we measure any other matter. Space, therefore, is determined by matter, and has no objective existence. In other words, space is a predicate of matter, or an arbitrary cognition by means of which we categorize the interrelation of mass. In attempting to describe time from these presuppositions, we run into several problems: first, time becomes individualistic; time is ordered differently in each person’s mind as he perceives different events and relates other events with them. And second, time becomes arbitrary, as it is determined by motion; time essentially changes as motion increases or decreases, and as the motion of a particular body changes relative to the motion of another body, time that is predicated of the one motion changes in relation to time which is predicated of another motion, so that time is no longer a simple system of relationships, but a composite system, significant of nothing. In other words, we view time both as the cause of motion and a predicate of motion, which is obviously a logical contradiction. And also, by this subjectivity, time loses its ability to interrelate. With no structured order, space-time then becomes chaos.

We have a more fundamental difficulty in our understanding of motion. If space is simple and continuous, an infinite series has to be exhausted before motion can be begun. Before a body in space can traverse point A to point B, it must cross half the distance from A to B; before it can cross this half-distance, it must cross half of that distance; and so on, ad infinitum, so that we cannot justify the possibility of motion. This logical impossibility has been recognized since Zeno gave his parable of the race between Achilles and the tortoise. In the end, if we accept the relativistic understanding of time as predicable of events and space as predicable of matter, we must conclude that motion is impossible, and therefore that any lapse of time is equally impossible. To reconcile the impossibility, we must presuppose that space-time is fundamental and existent apart from matter-motion, and that space-time is so structured that matter-motion is possible in space-time, and impossible apart from space-time.

First, we recognize the divisibility of matter; we must also accept that matter is not infinitely divisible. Any composite body of matter can be divided only a finite number of times before a single indivisible unit is isolated. We doubt not that matter is divisible beyond the atom; how far, we are not certain, but for the present argument let us call one indivisible component of an atom a unit of matter. Now, if we are to be true to our supposition that matter is possible only in space, we must assert that the existence of this unit is impossible apart from the existence of an equivalent unit of space; space then has real existence apart from matter, and is devisable but not indefinitely; let us then define a unit of space as one unit of substantive reality that makes possible a unit of mass-reality. A unit of space is comparable to a unit of matter, necessary for the existence of a unit of matter, and objectively real apart from matter. A unit of space that is occupied by a unit of matter we could term a unit of space-mass, and a unit of occupied space, merely a unit of space; these two conditions are the only possibilities for all physical existence.

We must now ask ourselves in what way motion is possible in a universe so constructed. First, we must change our definition of motion, in this new conception of the universe, to the change of the unit of space to a unit of space-mass, and the corresponding change of an adjoining unit of space-mass to a unit of space. The movement of matter to a new portion of space then is not continuous and unbroken, (for then we would have our old problem of exhausting an infinite series,) but is rather the simultaneous and immediate change in the fundamental nature of two adjoining space units. Now, to facilitate the occurrence of these changes, and hold true to our supposition that motion is possible only within time, we must define time, not as the change, but as the condition which enables the change. Time, then, as space, has fundamental objective reality; one unit of time we would call the fundamental reality which enables one such reciprocal change in two adjoining space units, extending at once to every space unit which adjoins a space unit of the other possible substance (that is, a space-mass unit adjoining a space unit, and vice-versa). Time, then, has objective reality apart from motion (for a unit of time does not necessitate change but only facilitates change), but motion is possible only in time. Now let us determine one unit of space at one unit of time a space-time particle; every space unit viewed collectively at one unit of time we may term a space-time instant.

Matter and motion are possible within the space-time continuum that we have just described in two possible ways; first, natural law, which we would define as the metaphysical system of laws governing the interrelation of phenomena within the space-time continuum. That is, natural law is that system which determines the conditions for the reciprocal change in nature of two adjoining space units. If we could define a space-time particle phenomenologically, we would probably assert that the change of one space unit from dark to light is the physical representation of a space time particle. That is, if we accept that the speed of light is approximately 186,000 miles per second, and we determine the number of space units (significantly more minute then an atom, as we have supposed), in a straight line that extends for 186,000 miles, we would say that this number of units squared is the number of space-time particles in that line, in one second. So, each space unit, in one second, is an equivalent number of space-time particles as the number of space units in the line. We would infer this definition by presupposing that light moves at the ultimate possible speed in the space-time continuum. From this framework, then, we can suppose that all movements determined by natural law are measurable: for example, the natural law of gravity we could measure by determining how many space-time instants elapsed between each space unit change caused by a body falling in a vacuum. This could of course be determined by observing the distance traversed in a period of time by the falling body proportionate to the distance traversed in that same period of time by light. Physical measurements, then, either of time or space, having this system as their base, are not relative, but absolute.

The second way in which motion within the space-time continuum is possible is by the action of will on a space-time particle. This is possible from the will of the Creator, or from the will of a creature to whom he has given that capacity; the will of a creature can effect motion in two ways: first, primary motion, which is a change caused by the a priori action of the will on matter, and necessary for the possibility of secondary motion; which is motioned governed by natural law, but the original source of which is unrelated to natural law. Perhaps I shall endeavor more fully to explain this later.

This understanding of the space-time continuum must affect our understanding of its Creator in several different ways; I will mention only one. Because neither motion nor matter, neither time nor space, is continual or unbroken, God’s providence must be as active as his ex nihilo creation. Because motion is not unbroken from one space unit to the next, there is no necessary connection between the vacation of one space-mass unit, and the resultant, simultaneous occupancy of an adjoining space-unit. Christians speculate that if God removed his hand of providence from creation, there would be instant chaos in the universal mass, for the laws governing the orderly relationship of mass come directly from God. In this view of the universe, however, we must take the hypothesis one step farther, and suppose that if God did remove his hand, the universe would not become chaotic, but would simply cease to be: for there is no necessary connection between the existence of a space-time particle from one instant to the next, apart from God’s sustenance.

We can see, then, that absolute time and space are only possible when they are fundamental realities; and that matter and motion are only possible when they are secondary realities, and occur within an absolute space-time continuum.

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